This invention relates to a remote control system for a camera, either film or video, and its objective lens for professional photography to produce theatre-quality movies and other productions requiring precise and variable lens and camera control.
In the filming or video taping of movies and other high quality productions, it is often necessary or desirable to use more than one camera for recording a scene from different positions simultaneously. Often one or more of those cameras is located in an inaccessible or inconvenient location, such as on a crane or moving dolly where it is difficult to have persons operating all of the camera and lens controls, such as lens focus and zoom, even if a cameraman is there for aiming the camera. While there have been systems for remotely controlling some of the functions of cameras and lenses under such conditions, those prior art controls have been unsatisfactory in various respects, such as inaccuracies in lens adjustments, delays in responses to control commands, incomplete information feedback to the operator and the like. Further, heretofore such remote systems did not provide the operator with a handheld control unit with a screen for selectively displaying the scene as actually viewed by the camera being remotely controlled.
The principle object of the present invention is to provide a novel remote control system for cine cameras and lenses that overcomes the deficiencies of the prior art systems.
Another object of this invention is to provide a remote control system for cine cameras and lenses wherein the operator""s portable control unit includes a screen on which camera/lens data and a video picture of the actual scene being recorded may be selectively displayed. A more detailed object is to provide such a system wherein the screen can selectively display scenes from more than one camera.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a remote control system and apparatus that may be used with any motion camera and objective lens therefor regardless of the manufacturer, size or type of camera or lens. More specifically, the control system and apparatus of the present invention is particularly suited for film cameras and lenses that have a variety of adjustments, such as film speed, shutter angle, T-stop (iris), focus, zoom, zoom speed, ramp speed using T-stop (iris) and/or shutter angle, depth of field shifts, and the like.
Other and more detailed objects of the present invention will appear to those skilled in the art from the drawings and detailed description of a preferred embodiment set forth below.